Royally Matched(29)

“I was supposed to present at a symposium. In front of hundreds—hundreds—of people!”

“Ah . . . I’m going to take a wild guess and say public speaking is not your favorite thing?”

She turns on her side, tucking her hands under her cheek innocently. “It’s paralyzing. I’m not an admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, but public speaking is my own personal “Premature Burial.””

I’ve never been big on Poe either—talk about a downer—but I understand what she means.

And I have the perfect solution.

“You should imagine me naked.” I snap the waist of my sleeping pants. “I could take this off, if you like. The vivid image will heal all that ails you, sweets.”

She shakes her head. “I believe the traditional strategy is to imagine the audience in their underwear.”

“But imagining me naked is much more fun.”

And we both laugh, even though it’s true.

Sarah sits up and reaches over, plucking a string on my guitar. It’s propped against the nightstand on her side of the bed. “So . . . do you actually know how to play this thing?”

“I do.”

She lies down on her side, arm bent, resting her head in her hand, regarding me curiously. “You mean like, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ the ‘ABC’s,’ and such?”

I roll my eyes. “You do realize that’s the same song, don’t you?”

Her nose scrunches as she thinks about it, and her lips move as she silently sings the tunes in her head. It’s fucking adorable. Then she covers her face and laughs out loud.

“Oh my God, I’m an imbecile!”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, but if you say so.”

She narrows her eyes. “Bully.” Then she sticks out her tongue.

Big mistake.

Because it’s soft and pink and very wet . . . and it makes me want to suck on it. And then that makes me think of other pink, soft, and wet places on her sweet-smelling body . . . and then I’m hard.

Painfully, achingly hard.

Thank God for thick bedcovers. If this innocent, blushing bird realized there was a hot, hard, raging boner in her bed, mere inches away from her, she would either pass out from all the blood rushing to her cheeks or hit the ceiling in shock—clinging to it by her fingernails like a petrified cat over water.

“Well, you learn something new every day.” She chuckles. “But you really know how to play the guitar?”

“You sound doubtful.”

She shrugs. “A lot has been written about you, but I’ve never once heard that you play an instrument.”

I lean in close and whisper, “It’s a secret. I’m good at a lot of things that no one knows about.”

Her eyes roll again. “Let me guess—you’re fantastic in bed . . . but everybody knows that.” Then she makes like she’s playing the drums and does the sound effects for the punch-line rim shot. “Ba dumb ba, chhhh.”

And I laugh hard—almost as hard as my cock is.

“Shy, clever, a naughty sense of humor, and a total nutter. That’s a damn strange combo, Titebottum.”

“Wait till you get to know me—I’m definitely one of a kind.”

The funny thing is, I’m starting to think that’s absolutely true.

I rub my hands together, then gesture to the guitar. “Anyway, pass it here. And name a musician. Any musician.”

“Umm . . . Ed Sheeran.”

I shake my head. “All the girls love Ed Sheeran.”

“He’s a great singer. And he has the whole ginger thing going for him,” she teases. “If you were born a prince with red hair? Women everywhere would adore you.”

“Women everywhere already adore me.”

“If you were a ginger prince, there’d be more.”

“All right, hush now smartarse-bottum. And listen.”

Then I play “Thinking Out Loud.” About halfway through, I glance over at Sarah. She has the most beautiful smile, and I think something to myself that I’ve never thought in all my twenty-five years: this is how it feels to be Ed Sheeran.

Sarah bites her bottom lip when I finish. And she claps. Her voice is quieter, scratchier with sleepiness. “You play beautifully, Henry.”

I wag my finger. “Told you. Never doubt me.”

She yawns big and wide. “Do it again.”

And though I feel exhaustion tugging on me, I don’t want to say no.

I think a moment. “Here’s one of my favorites.”

I play “Hallelujah.”

“I love this song, too.” Sarah smiles serenely and hums softly along as I play.

Afterward, I grunt out a yawn of my own. As I lay my guitar on the floor, I tell Sarah, “You have excellent pitch. Do you sing?”